Pastures Of Pawlenty Results are pouring in, and former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty’s 2012 campaign launch video is on its way to comedy gold.  Ominous music, quick cutting between historic footage and the fairytale grittiness of handheld cameras [Thanks, Battle Of Algiers!]   lend a semblance of urgency to Pawlenty’s flat intonation, but can the Rick Santorum Of The North overcome his roots in America’s Almost Canada? Amidst the familiar 60s crawl – MLK! Moonshots! – Pawlenty’s not afraid to take controversial stands                  He Does Not Care For Communism!    Â
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                   And, Founder Porn!Â
We also get such oddities as a wagon train [in black and white, for authenticity!]
The Kennedy Library used to [and may still] have a display of Jack’s Greatest Hits from press conferences of yore.It was amazing.  Even allowing for who chose the footage, the fawning questions setting JFK up to knock it out of the park every time were breathtaking.  But it wasn’t heard to convey energy and what passed for wit after the torpid Eisenhower years with Mom & Dad.   I think we’ll be spared the excitement of future Woodstock anniversary commemoration, but someone thinks there’s still juice to be extracted from round numbered Kennedy dates.HBO’s “A President To Remember” nominally marks the 50th anniversary of Kennedy’s inaugural.  Creator Robert Drew has great black and white footage of men in suits looking decisive, beyond that I’m guessing.The publicity materials are sparse, but the film seems blissfully unaware of the vast efforts by actual historians and journalists to take Smiling Jack down a peg. It’s still selling the original Kennedy premise of energy, drive and vague goals.Drew laments“We’ve had generations that have never known a active lively president who was well-regarded” What’s presented is Kennedy at his empty-suitest.  The publicity clip opens with JFK sound over video that sounds spliced together from a  couple of sources, and amounts to emphatically stated blather of the highest order:“I run for the presidency because i have strong ideas about what this country must do. That’s what i think this election is about, that’s what we’re going to begin to do next Tuesday”
Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.
Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!
McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:
Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective. Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height.  The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.
McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with piano chords of doom.
The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs:Â free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.
Christie On A Stick!Â
They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.
Having already incorporated Truman and Kennedy into the conservative pantheon, reactionaries are now critiquing Barack Obama for being just not FDR-ish enough
Portly torture enthusiast, former Bush speech writer and stain on the Washington Post op/ed page Mark Theeson is out with an exciting new line of pretend argument: that unless Obama mans up and fully enjoys fighting both depression and war he’ll end up a spent husk like Lyndon Johnson.
For purposes of lamenting Obama’s failure to use his oratorical powers in service of hustling the East, Thiessen assumes the guise of someone excited about expansive federal government, saddened by the stunting of LBJ’s Great Society.
A stance not often seen in the folds of the American Enterprise Institute, where the creator of wistful love notes to safely dead Democrats lies.
 lend a semblance of urgency to Pawlenty’s flat intonation, but can the Rick Santorum Of The North overcome his roots in America’s Almost Canada? Amidst the familiar 60s crawl – MLK! Moonshots! – Pawlenty’s not afraid to take controversial stands                  He Does Not Care For Communism!     
